Elizabeth Cary, 98, Was Familiar Face in Tisbury

Elizabeth Mason Cary died peacefully July 17 at Windermere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where she had been lovingly cared for since 2002. She was 98 years old.

Bessie was born in New York on March 2, 1907, the only child of George W. and Kilda (LeClair) Mason. By the time she was 10 years old both her parents had died and she was brought to Edgartown to live with her grandmother, Elizabeth Mason, who also died shortly after Bessie's arrival. The remainder of her childhood was spent in the care of Mr. and Mrs. T.M.R. Meickleham in their home on South Water street. Bessie was graduated from Edgartown High School in 1925.

In 1928 she married George W. Cary of Vineyard Haven and they made their home there with their three children. In 1942 she moved with her children to Taunton, and she worked in several jobs in Boston and Providence, R.I., to provide for her young family by herself.

She retired in 1973 from a position at Wheaton College in Norton, and returned to her beloved Island where she lived in the Cary family home on William street in Vineyard Haven. She became a familiar presence about the town where she had many friends of long standing and was also well known among the younger people who worked in the various businesses there. It was not an unusual event to hear many of the local young people call out to her as Nana. For more than 80 years she was a devoted member of St. Andrew's Church in Edgartown.

Bessie was a loving care giver and very devoted to her growing family. She is survived by her three children, Patricia and her husband, Robert Corr, of Vineyard Haven, John M. Cary of Spring Hill, Fla., and George W. Cary and his wife, Ida, of East Falmouth, 11 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held in St. Andrew's Episcopal Church at the corner of North Summer and Winter streets in Edgartown on Thursday, July 28, at 11 a.m. with the Rev. Robert D. Edmunds officiating. Her cremains will be interred in the Church Memorial Garden.

Donations in her memory may be made to Windermere, P.O. Box 1747, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557 or the Memorial Garden Fund of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 1287 Edgartown, MA 02539.

Arrangements are under the care of the Chapman, Cole and Gleason Funeral Home off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road in Oak Bluffs.